X.

THE RETURN.

The cottage in the peaceful vale, The jasmine round the door, The hill still shelters from the gale, The brook still glides before.

Without the porch, one summer noon, The Hermit-dweller see! In musing silence bending down, The book upon his knee.

Who stands between thee and the sun?-- A cloud herself,--the Wand'ring One!-- A vacant sadness in the eyes, The mind a razed, defeatured scroll; The light is in the laughing skies, And darkness, Eva, in thy soul! The beacon shaken in the storm, Had struggled still to gleam above The last sad wreck of human love, Upon the dying child to shed One ray--extinguish'd with the dead: O'er earth and heaven then rush'd the night! A wandering dream, a mindless form-- A Star hurl'd headlong from its height, Guideless its course, and quench'd its light. Yet still the native instinct stirr'd The darkness of the breast-- She flies, as flies the wounded bird Unto the distant nest. O'er hill and waste, from land to land, Her heart the faithful instinct bore; And there, behold the Wanderer stand Beside her Childhood's Home once more!